This week's concerts by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra include reminders of the difficulties that have befallen Minnesota's two great classical music bands -- though it has nothing to do with the performance by an orchestra that is re-establishing its strength with every appearance.

The first reminder is inadvertent. The program note for the opening work, Haydn's Symphony No. 91, erroneously reports that its most recent performance by the SPCO was last spring -- impossible since the musicians were then locked out in a contract dispute. The correct performance was in the spring of 2011 in a concert conducted by Nicholas McGegan.

The other reminder involves the centerpiece of this week's concerts: Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, performed ably by Christian Zacharias, who also is doubling as conductor for the entire program. Those who follow the Minnesota Orchestra's recording projects may recall the acclaimed recording of the 5th and 4th concertos that Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin made with the orchestra several years ago.

When that recording was released on the BIS label in December 2010, one British reviewer heaped praise on the Minnesota Orchestra, calling it "an ensemble that, as other American orchestras struggle with their identities, has vaulted into the top ranks." How abruptly things can change.

But the SPCO is here to make music now and the concerts that continue through Sunday are not only fine, but also intriguing.

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This is especially true of the Beethoven "Emperor," the longest and best-known of the five concertos. For the first performance Thursday, the piano was placed in the center of the orchestra, with the keyboard facing the audience.

The effect of the arrangement, combined with the double duties of Zacharias as pianist and conductor, is to emphasize the whole work rather than something for soloist and band. This shouldn't be a new discovery, of course, since the Emperor concerto is the grandest work of its kind until Brahms arrived on the scene. But sometimes we forget. To watch the orchestra move as one voice through the frequent Rubato-like treatment by Zacharias was equally impressive.

The program opened with the Haydn Symphony 91, a genteel and mild-mannered work that was crisply articulated, though restrained and with a sometimes tip-toe quality that had some of the performers smiling. Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 2, with its highly textured first movement was not as massively inexorable as it could be, but the second movement was compelling, energetic and punchy.

Who: The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with conductor and pianist Christian Zacharias